


o sweet cautery, o delightful wound

by dottore_polidori



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Harry D. S. Goodsir - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Death, William Gibson - Freeform, Wound kissing, tending a wound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-17 16:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16099364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottore_polidori/pseuds/dottore_polidori
Summary: John Irving yearns for the returning. But it is not the time. There would be a sign.





	o sweet cautery, o delightful wound

**Author's Note:**

> “O sweet cautery,  
> O delightful wound!  
> O gentle hand! O delicate touch  
> that tastes of eternal life  
> and pays every debt!  
> In killing you changed death to life.”  
> — Saint John of the Cross

“Why don’t you let me?”

The base matter of his body conspires against the dictates of the soul, but this was to be expected. John Irving supposes that it must have shown on his face: the fear of pain that, even now, steers the men away from Heaven’s narrow door. The flesh deceives, discourages from the necessary task; as though it had a mind of its own, the meat revolts, clinging to this half-life, to the false-light of a Sun that is but match-flame to the face of God.

When the promise is fulfilled and he is recalled to the bosom of the Father, this living corpse of his will be shed like the chrysalis, returned to the clay from which it was modeled. John Irving yearns for this returning. But it is not the time. There would be a sign.

“Don’t worry yourself. It is nothing.” He does not mean to cover the right hand with his left, like it were a shameful thing, the mark of his failure.

The wind wails, the tins chime empty. The storm has scattered them from their pile, and every so often they will knock against each other and the jagged stones. In another time he would not have allowed for disorder, visited punishment upon the men for their idleness. It is beyond their strength, now, to tighten the ropes so the tents do not dance and whistle, so the cold does not needle through the gaps and leech them of the warmth so miserably kindled. There is time yet to put his house in order.

“I would look after you, Lieutenant. It is, after all, the reason I was brought.” The man means something other than his words. Could he be imagining the note of laughter in his voice? It is well-known how the scurvy addles the mind, tampers with memory, disorders time; and now Doctor Goodsir has educated them on the cognitive effects of lead. Hickey remains unchanged, if a little lean, eyes bright and shining as the others melt into soup, bruises turned liquid from the friction. John has not dared to look at himself in a glass ever since they left the ships.

Sunlight peeks from a gap in the canvas, illuminating Mister Hickey. He has been so helpful. What does he want? Now he is extending a hand, so lovely. The man gives a small nod, encouraging. The skin of his forehead folds in an expression that could pass for preoccupation, but John hesitates. “Come now, sir. You don’t want to lose it.”

 _It_ , he means the hand that may well be rotting under the rags. _Bandages_ , he corrects, but it makes small difference. Beyond the Captain and the good Doctor, it had been his wish that nobody learn of his infirmity. But command has appointed him this helper, and not to make use of him would be a waste. He must be grateful of what he has. His elbow unbends that had been clenched to his body. He does not see but feel Hickey holding the tips of his fingers with his own.

It is a good sign, sensation. He looks on to the caulker’s mate, avoiding the sight of his limb as it is being unwrapped. He looks on to the man crouching, and thinks the ridiculous thought that this is the closest he has had to a wife. (Anything to chase away the image of the skeleton hand, and the black flesh around it, seething with maggots.) The man’s touch is light and gentle, the motion cautious. “Have you done this before?”

“With all due respect, sir, does it make any difference to you?” Hickey’s eyes are narrowed into slits, and he breathes through the nose, hard, and John can tell that he is laughing. “As a matter of fact, I have. There was this friend I had. Got himself in all kinds of trouble, he did.” His expression relaxes, and for the time that he works he is smiling in truth. John expects to be regaled with a story, to distract from the cloth that is being ripped from the ill-healing lesion — anything to remind them of a time before this. But Hickey is not so generous. The memory he does not share, but guard like a treasure.

Anger hardens John’s heart, throttles it like a bird in the fist. It takes all of his power not to slap the diminutive man, dancing on his elf-hoard of happiness. He is jealous of what Hickey has, and whatever it is he would like to have it.

“It’s not so bad, considering. What does Doctor Goodsir say?”

He almost asks, _What about?_ The pressure at the heel of his palm brings him back to the place, reminds him what it is that they are doing. Hickey’s rubbing the callus with his thumb, relieving the itch from the centre without touching. Forgotten his reticence like his urge to violence, he sets eye upon the wound.

“Praise God.”

It does not comfort him that it is improved, but that it isn’t the worse.

Was there a time that he did not have it?

How he had burned himself with the rope, hauling, scratching when needed soothing. (But then again, he was always afraid; nervous about the monster, about the whispers that quieted when he set a foot forward, unsettling the stones.) He had picked with his nails at the skin that first grew thick, then retreated weeping. How he had rubbed himself raw. He’d been ashamed of this weakness, would have kept it a secret if Doctor Goodsir hadn’t touched him soft upon the shoulder. John had turned then, tucked into the tent with his back bent, ready for the admonition.

“It will get worse, if you keep doing this.” Goodsir chided without vexation, indifferent to hope and such follies. A scientific man, from youth a witness to the patterns of nature — the cycles of life, death, and consumption — could not pull the wool over his own eyes, so clear the knowledge of what was and what would be. It was a matter of arithmetic, that most of them should perish, the question being when, who first and in what manner. But that was no reason for lassitude. The surgeon would apply his training, both of them would — he and John had to live, if not for themselves then for the others.

There were options yet: he taught John the proper way to clean the wound, to bandage it tightly so he wouldn’t be tempted to scratch, to slip a pin or a pencil under the bindings. “It should be possible to cease the picking if you do not see the wound, and if you do not feel for it either. It can be saved, and the mind trained to forget, but an open lesion is vulnerable to infection, and to waste all that energy on repairs…”

The rest needn’t be said. There had been others before, succumbed to cuts and bruises dirtied, feverish and raving. Calling out to mothers long dead, sisters and sweethearts left ashore waiting. Then the silence. Some of them were fortunate to have friends living, to change their soiled bedding, to hold them close as they shivered, as they rattled nearer to death.

Nearer to death and closer to God. With the final exhalation came the release, a comfort that John coveted above all others, better than sustenance or a friend’s assurance. He continued to serve, that He should not find him wanting, quashed the worm of rebellion before it could infect all. He wouldn’t complain, or stamp his feet with impatience, but let his body fall from him layer by layer until it was ready for picking.

Fallen like the flower from the fruit, the fruit from the seed. Rotten fruit from healthful seed, stripped by the wild animals. In time, in time he would be called, as the others had been when their purpose fulfilled.

All he could do was to keep clean, report to the good Doctor for encouragement on his progress, though every time each grew more more ragged, less inclined to speak or smile — smiles that had been the simplest of courtesies grown taxing on body and soul. Then they had given him Mister Hickey, as much to serve as to be kept in line. John’s nerves had worsened for it.

“He loves you very much, sir. God does. You are lucky, to have been chosen.”

“Please. Do not mock me for my faith.”

The words run out of his mouth, automatic, as they have many times before. But all the while he is thinking of Hickey’s finger at the very edge of the wound, where a small bit of skin is flapping. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes — the image intrudes, of Hickey gouging him deeply. His other self cries out.

The warmth that spreads over his body is something other than relief. The rag is pressed so soft, so slowly. Even the touch stings. His hand, his head, his heart, and the other parts of him are throbbing. The wound must still be raw, for the alcohol burns, though less than it did the first time.

“Do you miss your friends, Mister Hickey?”

Hickey measures his answer. “No, sir. I am happy to be here, with you.”

An agreeable sound, guileless, but when Hickey kisses his wrist, John can see the truth in it, like a grain of sand glinting.

“Let us not pretend — that you were not given into my care but to keep you out of mischief. That we have not made one another miserable —”

It is the hate of each other that binds them. Neither of them asked for this, but someone had thought it grand, and his fellows had approved of it — kill two birds with one stone, and consider the matter settled. The nerve-endings of his palm are sensitive. He can almost see Hickey’s tongue, warm and wet and red and willing.

“Hush, sir.”

A fruit of impossible sweetness, here of all places; offered to him yet he will refuse it, remain steadfast in his devotion. The Beloved is testing him — only He could have plumbed the depths of his soul to pluck therefrom the image of Hickey’s ripe mouth.

The wracked lungs struggle, his upper body tensed at the sketch of a red smile over broken skin. The words caught in his throat are fast dissolving, superfluous like sugar rations hauled across the ice, across the rocks in heavy boats. (Green shoots by slaves tended, broken and for hours boiled, to England shipped, ended here as grave-goods for the men of Franklin.) His good hand grasps and stretches the seam of his trousers, anticipating the prickle of whiskers. Instead comes the slippery press of the tongue, tasting. Light at first, testing, then heavy-lathered. Hickey laps at him like a dog, hungry for grease and crumb leavings, the pain stinging-sweet. Sweeter still for engaging these fancies. John is dying.

Someone is laughing — the sound is coming from himself. What a strange place to be. Cornelius Hickey licking and sucking at the hole in his hand — this is what sex must be like, or a Revelation. Now would be the time for a vision of the Lord, but it is enough, he supposes, to have the tiger eating from his palm. Perhaps it is a message in itself, the cruelest of beasts gentled. His fingers curl under Hickey’s chin, scratching at his mockery of a beard, and the man sighs, leaning into the touch. His breath warm, crawling up John’s sleeve. It is pleasing, the animal vibration of his throat. He could grow to love Hickey, like this. Harness his wildness.

This must be the sign. The contemplation of the stigma by the gravest of sinners. (What for? Indeed, what for.) He does not open his eyes yet, allows for the lengthening of time, for the prolongation of this twofold existence. The one contained in this temporal vessel, the other glimpsed through the mind’s eye, painted in bold colour. Red and white and blue and gold, like stained glass, the illuminated pages of a missal. The beast in genuflection to the lamb’s high priest.

Who shall be held to account for this kiss that is like fucking? No, no, he must not think in such terms. He forsakes the body, the hand of his gripping tight against the cloth until it is reached for, soothing. Rubbed until the fist slackens, the touch lingering, then settling upon his ravaged thigh. Another time, another life, and he might have been tempted. And how he’d have fallen, drawn the man closer, closer, until it was one flesh that they shared, between them no beginning, no end. He has since lost capacity for hardness. God will remember his sacrifice, the lifelong denial of a closer contact.

(He should have married when he had the chance, if only to share with her a night, a pension for to compensate her widow’s weeds. A virtuous woman saved from penury. But he couldn’t have foreseen it would come to this.)

“You will be the end of me.” It is neither question nor petition, the affirmation of a truth. His left hand covers Hickey’s right, forefingers pressed to the inner angle of his thumb. That stretch of skin, so tender — one could cut across it with a knife, but John will not have his servant maimed. “Do you accept this?”

Hickey begins to draw away, but John catches him by the ear and lowers him roughly, the head placed between his knees. John allows himself to see now, making use of these eyes in which the worms will make their burrows. The man twists in discomfort, earlobe cruelly folded between John’s fingers. The struggle continues until pressed with both hands, one on each side of Hickey’s face, the bristles of his beard cutting into flesh.

Even so constrained, the man glares up at him in defiance. As should be. “Let me off, Lieutenant. Let me off.”

“Do you accept this, Mister Hickey? To be my hand when I am not able. To serve me unto death.”

The grip loosens, his good hand caressing the mishandled parts. The base of his ear, the roots of the hairs nearly torn from the scalp. Hickey shakes him away, turns his head to the side. John can see that he is not afraid, that he is thinking, chewing the inside of his lip. Scratches his nose, his chin, spreading the fat over his face.

“Here I am separated from those who love me, to mend your socks and make your bedding. To pour soup down your throat as mine grows ever colder. When you die, they will kill me. What else would you have me surrender?”

“Your will to me, Mister Hickey.”

Hickey laughs, throwing his chin up. His eyes are bright with mirth. “My will?”

“Let me guide your soul to Heaven. Carry out my orders and we shall be welcomed together.”

“Are the actions of the body not enough, that you should be asking for my soul as well? Will you put it in writing to have us buried together after they’ve hanged me? You hold yourself too highly. Pride is a sin, Lieutenant. Repent.”

He presses the back of the bad hand flat against Hickey’s cheek. He does not flinch, but hold his eye darkly — there is something else there, hungering. How to begin? How to make him understand? He rips a bit of skin from his lip and swallows. “I will give you the pleasure of ending me. All that I have I leave to you.” _My coat, my love. My spyglass for your knife._

In the moments before sleep, he has looked upon Hickey, watched him. Sitting in the darkness, hunched. The hand deep in his pocket, caressing — what? John never asked, but his soul must have known, for he dreams of his heart cut to ribbons and a face burning bright like an angel. Held over him in the place of Sun and stars, God’s messenger and message. Not to be feared.

“I will be free, then?”

“After it is finished, yes. They do not see it, but there is kindness in your heart. What you did for Gibson.” Doctor Goodsir had stumbled into their embrace, and for the wretchedness of his cries had been useless to stop them. Mister Gibson had taken too long to die, wasting in his leather sack. John had held his hand and prayed, but it was Hickey that had helped him to cross. What a better way to pass than in the arms of a friend. “What you did for him, it was a mercy. A gift that must not be withheld from those as need it.”

It was for this action that Hickey was first separated, taken for a man deranged with a red knife in his hand. There was the safety of the sick to be considered, and John had agreed with the reasoning. But not a fortnight later it was Crozier himself eased the poison down his Commander’s throat, so to spare him the long twilight. When the knowledge of it came through, it was not only Hickey’s friends that were muttering.

“You’re mad.”

“No.”

“You’d have me end it for them.” He laughs, moving his head from side to side. The apple of his throat bobs tight under the neckerchief. John would put his hand under it, gather the warmth for himself. “And then you would have me kill you. No, no, no. I won’t get my hands dirtied for you. I shan’t play your instrument.”

“It won’t be long. See all around you.”

They haven’t marched in weeks, waiting for the sick to die. But for every one that passes there are two that had been hale, fallen to their beds and unlikely to rise.

“Do they not deserve it? To whom is the right reserved? To pass with dignity. Like William Gibson.” Whom you loved.

“Like William Gibson.” He purses his lips and nods. Men like him are rarely given the choice, even in such faraway places. “I will join you, if you come. But first you must earn my love.”

“I will, I will, Mister Hickey. Together we will go.”

So they rise.

**Author's Note:**

> I've no idea why I've written this, much less posted for the world to see. But I had to get it out of my brain so I could move on to other things, this little story in which Irving and Hickey are master and servant, or sort of married which is the same. If you would find it in yourselves to forgive me then I should want for nothing.
> 
> I'd like to thank asemic for enabling me, for encouraging these appetites. I can only hope you found this halfway palatable.


End file.
